The bombshells from the Twitter files keep on coming, yet the liberal media elite keep ignoring them. Last month when Tesla founder and Twitter owner Elon Musk began tweeting out former Rolling Stone editor Matt Taibbi’s explosive reporting on how Twitter (under pressure from government agents) suppressed the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story in the final days before the election.
It was an exhaustive and shocking account that confirmed what Republicans, conservatives and Donald Trump supporters had suspected all along, that Big Tech and Big Media had joined Big Government in rigging the 2020 election for President Joe Biden.
So how much time did the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks devote to Musk and Taibbi’s exposing how Twitter hid Hunter’s laptop scandal?
A miniscule 128 seconds (2 minutes and 8 seconds).
The entirety of the coverage was on CBS. Not a single journalist on ABC or NBC has even touched the story.
(There was a 26 second mention on NBC, but it didn’t come from a journalist. Vice President Mike Pence’s former chief of staff Marc Short brought the topic up on the December 4 edition of NBC’s Meet the Press. There was no follow-up by moderator Chuck Todd.)
MRC analysts reviewed ABC, CBS, NBC morning, evening and Sunday roundtable shows from December 2 (when the Twitter files story broke) through the morning of January 18 and found only CBS (barely) covered the Twitter files story on Hunter. Even then, the coverage was skeptical of Taibbi’s findings.
Buried on the December 4 edition of CBS Sunday Morning was this 75 second portion of a story on Musk buying Twitter:
CORRESPONDENT LUKE BURBANK: But Musk thinks Twitter’s prior management unfairly stifled conservative speech. On Friday, when reporter Matt Taibbi tweeted a trove of internal emails purporting to prove Twitter’s ‘liberal bias,’ Musk retweeted the thread approvingly.
ALEX STAMOS (Former Chief Security Officer at Facebook): In the days before the 2020 election, Twitter made the decision to not allow people to post the New York Post story about Hunter Biden`s laptop until they could try to figure out whether or not that was part of a government influence campaign.
BURBANK: Alex Stamos, the former chief security officer at Facebook and says the Russian hacking of Democratic National Committee emails in 2016 made Twitter wary of foreign influence campaigns.
STAMOS: And then they decided, since it was going to get covered, that they should allow it to be posted. So, they did make a mistake. But the idea that it affected the election is just ludicrous.
BURBANK: For some, Twitter`s suppression of that article became a First Amendment issue. But Kara Swisher thinks that misses the point.
KARA SWISHER (Tech journalist/Co-founder of Vox Media’s Re-Code): It’s gotten sucked up into a free speech conversation or First Amendment conversation, largely by people who’ve never read the First Amendment. Because it’s about ‘government shall make no law.’ That’s all it says, folks. And so, companies certainly can, and they certainly do.
Then on the December 5 edition of CBS Mornings, came this quick and vague 25 second mention from correspondent Robert Costa:
CORRESPONDENT ROBERT COSTA: Trump’s latest comments were in response to a report by journalist Matt Taibbi that showed Twitter employees deliberating in October 2020 about how to handle a New York Post article about a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son. Taibbi also reported both the Biden campaign and the Trump White House communicated with Twitter about content.
The last mention by a reporter of the Twitter files story arrived in the following 28 second mention by correspondent Carter Evans on the December 15 edition of the CBS Evening News:
CORRESPONDENT CARTER EVANS: But the way Musk uses his platform to attack opponents is thrusting him into the political spotlight. That includes his recent release of the so-called Twitter files, which allege bias in reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop and Trump’s ban. Is there a smoking gun in the Twitter files?
ALEX STAMOS (Director, Stanford Internet Observatory): There’s no specific smoking gun. There’s a huge amount of hypocrisy from Musk himself, where he will say that this is scandalous, but then he will use the exact same techniques against anybody who is critical of him.
Of course the tiny amount of network coverage of the Twitter files story does a disservice to the scope and depth of Taibbi’s reporting on how the government forced Twitter to censor the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.
The following are a few of the stunning stories of how the Hunter Biden story was silenced by Big Government, Big Tech and how the networks covered or more accurately didn’t cover them:
Elon Musk Releases Twitter Files on How Company Suppressed Hunter Laptop Story
On December 2, the New York Post reported the following:
That is “f—ed.”
Twitter “just freelanced” its baseless decision to censor The Post’s bombshell Hunter Biden laptop scoop in the run up to the 2020 election — with top-level workers at the social media giant agreeing that controversial decision was “f–ked,” damning insider communications released by CEO Elon Musk Friday reveal.
The chaos and confusion behind closed doors at Twitter in the immediate aftermath of the October 2020 Hunter Biden expose show that a small group of top-level execs decided to label the Post’s story as “hacked material” without any evidence — behind the back of then-CEO and founder Jack Dorsey.
Musk tweeted a link to the account of independent journalist Matt Taibbi shortly after 6 p.m., who shed light on Twitter’s shady censorship decision by posting what appeared to be redacted emails between Twitter employees. The decision to censor The Post’s story was made “at the highest levels of the company,” according to Taibbi, but without Dorsey’s involvement. As Taibbi put it: The internal communications reveal “just how much was done without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, and how long it took for the situation to get ‘unf–ked’ (as one ex-employee put it) even after Dorsey jumped in.”
According to Taibbi, Twitter’s former head of legal, policy, and trust Vijaya Gadde played a “key role” in the censorship decision.
Damning emails and comments from former Twitter employees showed that “everyone knew” the social media giant’s suppression of The Post’s scoops about Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop. “was f—ed.”
The company’s shaky rationale for taking the extraordinary censorship step was that the story violated the company’s “hacked materials” policy, according to Taibbi — which was questioned by many insiders.
…According to Taibbi, the social media company “took extraordinary steps to suppress” The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story, removing links to the expose shared by users and posting warnings that it may be “unsafe.” Taibbi said that Twitter even resorted to a rarely used tactic to stop the dissemination of the story – blocking the sharing of links to the story via direct message, a tool usually only used in “extreme cases,” such as to stop the distribution of child pornography.
Twitter’s censorship of the story led to then-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany getting locked out of her account with just weeks to go before the 2020 election.
…Taibbi also revealed company emails responding to a request “from the Biden team” during the run-up to the 2020 election — shortly after the company cracked down on The Post’s Hunter Biden story.
Another, dated Oct. 24, 2020, said, “An additional report from DNC,” an apparent reference to the Democratic National Committee. One, dated Oct. 24, 2020, said, “More to review from the Biden team,” along with a list of tweets. In response, someone wrote back, “handled these.”
Taibbi also tweeted: “Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored.” But the former Rolling Stone writer said the “system wasn’t balanced” and “was based on contacts”
“Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right,” he wrote.
ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage: 2 minutes, 8 seconds. (ABC 0 seconds; NBC 0 seconds; CBS 128 seconds).
Twitter Pressured by FBI, Just a Few Hours Before New York Post Broke Hunter Laptop Story
On December 19, the New York Post reported the following:
The FBI pressured Twitter to suppress The Post’s blockbuster scoop about Hunter Biden’s laptop by warning it could be part of a Russian “hack and leak” operation — even while knowing the concern was unfounded, according to internal company records made public Monday.
The latest release of the “Twitter Files” authorized by new owner Elon Musk also provided more examples of former top FBI lawyer Jim Baker’s role in cracking down on The Post’s reporting while he worked as Twitter’s deputy general counsel, a job from which Musk fired him earlier this month.
Documents posted on Twitter by independent journalist Michael Shellenberger showed that Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, was contacted by FBI Agent Elvis Chan just hours before The Post published the first laptop story on Oct. 14, 2020.
Chan used a special, one-way communication channel to send Roth and at least one other person 10 documents on the night of Oct. 13, 2020, and asked them to confirm receipt, Shellenberger found.
Approximately two-and-a-half hours earlier, Hunter Biden attorney George Mesires had called and emailed Delaware computer repair shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac after learning from The Post that the first article based on files recovered from the abandoned laptop would be published the next day.
“I am a lawyer for Hunter Biden and I appreciate you reviewing your records on this matter,” Mesires wrote to Mac Isaac.
At 5 a.m. on Oct. 14, The Post published the first of many scoops exposing questionable overseas business dealings conducted by Hunter Biden — details of which were hidden in plain sight on the hard drive of his laptop.
…
But The Post’s story was suppressed by Facebook and Twitter, which temporarily banned the outlet in the wake of its publication. It was also ignored or discredited by mainstream outlets, many of whom quietly substantiated the report months later.…
In July 2020, three months before The Post broke the Hunter Biden laptop story, Chan emailed Roth suggested that beginning 30 days before Election Day, Twitter executives would be granted temporary security clearances to discuss purported threats with FBI officials. “You get to pick who they would be,” Chan wrote. Roth subsequently admitted in a sworn declaration that the feds had primed him to view any reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop as a “Russian ‘hack and leak’ operation.”
And Chan later admitted under oath that the FBI warnings were exaggerated.
“Through our investigations, we did not see any similar competing intrusions to what had happened in 2016,” Chan said, apparently referring to the infamous Russian hack of the Democratic National Committee’s emails.
ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage: 0 seconds.
Aspen Institute Held “Exercise” Attended by Twitter Official on How to Influence Coverage of Hunter Story
On December 19, the New York Post reported the following:
A US government-funded nonprofit known as “the mountain retreat for the liberal elite” sponsored a “tabletop exercise” intended to influence coverage of a leak of documents related to Hunter Biden, the latest installment of Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” reveals.
In a series of tweets Monday, independent journalist Michael Shellenberger posted confidential documents from the Aspen Institute’s September 2020 event, which he said was attended by Twitter’s then-head of trust and safety, Facebook’s head of security policy and top national security reporters from The New York Times and The Washington Post.
The exercise by the “Aspen Digital Hack-and-Dump Working Group” involved an 11-day scenario in October 2020 that began with the imaginary release of falsified records related to Hunter Biden’s controversial employment by the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, which paid him as much as $1 million a year to serve on its board when his father was vice president.
“The goal was to shape how the media covered it — and how social media carried it,” Shellenberger wrote.
But the drill was put into practical use weeks later, when The Post broke the news about Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop — which was either ignored or downplayed by most mainstream news outlets and suppressed by both Twitter and Facebook.
ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage: 0 seconds.
Musk Fires Twitter’s Lawyer and Former FBI Agent James Baker Over His Suppression of Internal Docs
On December 6, the New York Post reported the following:
Elon Musk has fired Twitter’s deputy general counsel, James Baker, over his alleged suppression of internal documents about blocking The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop exposé.
“In light of concerns about Baker’s possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue, he was exited from Twitter today,” Musk tweeted Tuesday.
Musk added that he questioned Baker before his firing about the events surrounding the laptop suppression scandal and that the lawyer’s explanation was “unconvincing.”
Baker, a former top FBI lawyer, was discovered to be secretly vetting the internal Twitter documents before they could be reviewed by journalists, leading to a delay in the release of more material related to the company’s censorship scandal.
“On Friday, the first installment of the Twitter files was published here. We expected to publish more over the weekend. Many wondered why there was a delay,” independent journalist Matt Taibbi tweeted on Tuesday.
“We can now tell you part of the reason why. On Tuesday, Twitter Deputy General Counsel (and former FBI General Counsel) Jim Baker was fired. Among the reasons? Vetting the first batch of ‘Twitter Files’ — without knowledge of new management,” Taibbi added.
…
Baker “is a controversial figure,” Taibbi wrote.
“He has been something of a Zelig of FBI controversies dating back to 2016, from the Steele Dossier to the Alfa-Server mess. He resigned in 2018 after an investigation into leaks to the press.
“The news that Baker was reviewing the ‘Twitter files’ surprised everyone involved, to say the least. New Twitter chief Elon Musk acted quickly to ‘exit’ Baker Tuesday,” Taibbi tweeted.
Baker was previously general counsel for the FBI under former Director James Comey and a key figure in the bureau’s investigation into false claims of collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. During his time at the FBI, Baker worked with fiercely anti-Trump FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. After leaving the bureau in 2018, Baker reportedly found himself under criminal investigation for allegedly leaking materials to reporters.
…
This summer, Baker also was a star witness for special counsel John Durham in his case against former Hillary Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann, who was found not guilty in May of lying to the FBI. In addition, Baker has been linked to Mother Jones reporter David Corn, who broke the news of the existence of the Steele dossier, compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele and loaded with unproven claims about Trump. Baker allegedly communicated with Corn in the weeks leading up to the November 2016 presidential election before Corn reported on the existence of the dossier on Oct. 31, 2016.
Twitter tapped Baker to help lead its legal team in June 2020, a month after the social media company generated controversy for labeling two Trump tweets claiming that mail-in ballots will lead to a “rigged election” as promoting misinformation.
ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning show coverage: 0 seconds.
For this study MRC analysts looked at the ABC, CBS, NBC evening and morning shows and their Sunday roundtable programs from December 2, 2022 through the morning of January 18, 2023.
